Planners and Catchers Report

Until recently I wasn't familiar with the backstory behind Dodgers Stadium, referred to casually by some baseball announcers as "Chavez Ravine." Chavez Ravine was actually the site of a Mexican-American community, demolished to make room for the new stadium in the 1950s. Both the PBS website on the 2004 documentary and the Wikipedia entry on the "Battle of Chavez Ravine" suggest that the clearance of the neighborhood actually began before Walter O'Malley and the Dodgers showed up; nonetheless, it is hard to de-link the stadium from the destruction that preceded it. Especially if you have some biases against the Dodgers to begin with. Ahem.

Which led me to thinking: if we judged baseball teams in terms of the effects of their placement on the urban fabric, which teams would we end up rooting for? I'm a Braves fan by family tradition, but I don't think the Braves would pass muster at all, given the effects of Atlanta-Fulton County Stadium and then Turner Field on nearby neighborhoods. Then there are what we could call "sprawl stadia" (Rangers Ballpark in Arlington, TX; the atrociously named Angels Stadium of Anaheim); ballparks that have been directly linked to urban revitalization (Oriole Park at Camden Yards; Jacobs Field in Cleveland; Petco Park in San Diego); no-longer-existent ballparks that became symbols of their declining cities (Tigers Stadium, Three Rivers Park in Pittsburgh); and ballparks that were lucky enough to have winning teams early, thus establishing themselves in the city fabric long before urban renewal hit (Wrigley Field, Fenway Park, and, for at least one more season, Yankee Stadium).

My guess would be that Planner Nation would be split. The urban designers would end up rooting for the Giants, because from what I've heard AT&T Park works beautifully with the rest of the city. The urban historians can have the Cubs or the Red Sox. The community developers would back the Padres, if Petco Park actually lives up to its potential. The transportation lovers will take the Mets, unless the new Citi Field proves harder to get to by subway than Shea Stadium is. Also the new Nationals stadium might work, although I refuse to root for the Nationals on non-planning-related principle. And it may be that enough time has passed, and enough has changed, that someone can make the case for the Dodgers, the history of Chavez Ravine notwithstanding. But I suspect the Braves are a lost cause.